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Posted: Wednesday 13 May, 2015 at 2:22 PM

Exorbitant legal fees left by former Administration says PM Harris

Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris
By: Terresa McCall, SKNVibes.com

    BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE former St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party Administration is being criticised for the astronomical $80M legal bills it allegedly racked up during its last term in office, $8M of which was spent on just three matters.

     

    The criticism came from sitting Prime Minister the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris at his most-recent press conference held yesterday (May 12) at Government Headquarters.

    Prime Minister Harris informed that a “cursory look” at the expenditure of the then Government during the period 2010 to 2015 shows that some $76,965,098.75 was spent in legal fees.

    “In other words, $77M in legal fees in claims against the Government. That is substantial for a small country…$80M and counting.”

    In providing a bit of a breakdown of the expenditure, Dr. Harris explained that the former Administration committed three violations against the Federal Parliament and, having been engaged in Court, expended $8M.

    “The cost of these transgressions and violations against the Parliament since 2013 – the Senators Bill, the Motion of No Confidence and the Boundaries case – has been monetised at around $8M and we are still counting. The $8M is $8M and counting, because we are still receiving bills. Last time you would recall that I had said that I had received from the Ministry of Finance a request for about US$134,000 from Delano Bart in relation to matters to do with those cases, which we will call political cases. The bills are still coming in.

    “I can say to you that during the period 2012 to 2015 some $2M was paid to Senior Counsel Astaphan as far as the documentation that we have would suggests. I could say to you that we had other payments. For example, to a Roger Ford of over half a million dollars…”

    The Federation’s leader said his Administration has had to foot the bill and expend $8M of taxpayers’dollars to pay for “political cases engineered by the Government in some way by its inappropriate action”.

    He expressed concern about “the way in which monies for legal expenses were, as it were, being expended” and questioned whether those monies could not have been used for other more-pressing issues.

    “…Were there no discerning eyes within the Government? Was there no conscience alive to the fact that clearly what was developing was akin to a parasitic oligarchy feasting at the covers of the people of St. Kitts and Nevis? And while this Government did not dare wink an eye with respect to legal fees to a select group of persons, this Government was not minded to spend on the Basseterre High School.”
     
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